


Another Beach Day

by epersonae



Series: the only life you could save [20]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Lucretia is a bit of a workaholic, Post-Canon, post-Reckoning, processing feelings, yoga on the beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 14:53:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16976664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epersonae/pseuds/epersonae
Summary: Lucretia deals with some feelings. Merle recommends delegating. Mookie wipes out.





	Another Beach Day

**Author's Note:**

> Set directly after the end of The Reckoning Arrives.

She watches the rift seal shut as Taako and Kravitz and Barry and Lup head home, and Angus with them, to finish his interrupted visit. She looks back towards the house, where Kenneth is having tea with Mavis in Merle’s cozy mess of a kitchen. 

Really, it’s time to go back to work; there’s so much to do, and she’s again feeling the pressure of time and the enormity of the work. It’ll be a few days, at least, before she can see Magnus or Angus anyway. Getting back to her routine will keep her from worrying.

She traces the symbol on her bracer with her index finger, but before she can press it to summon the glass ball, Merle clears his throat.

“You ain’t just gonna go back right away, are ya?”

“I do have a  _ job,  _ Merle, and I need to get Kenneth started with his paperwork—”

“You don’t still make folks fight ogres to get started I hope?”

She laughs. “Doesn’t really match the work we’re doing, no.”

He shakes his head in mock disappointment. “Ah, too bad, bet he’d be a real corker at that. You got that fancy-pants assistant, though, right?”

“You’ve met Alex before, yes.”

“An’ that Brad fella still works for ya?”

“Despite Taako’s best efforts.”

He harrumphs.

“Still say that Dracula fella woulda been real good at that job. Seemed very organized.”

“We were able to place him with a group doing reconstruction work in Goldcliff, and he’s been doing very good work with the Bureau since then. So I do appreciate it, even if I didn’t need anyone to replace an actual competent employee.”

“Alright, alright, it’s your gig, I’m not gonna— but what I’m saying is, you’ve got some good folks, and between Alex and Brad and whoever, kid’s gonna get all hired up. Which, nice work. Real good on ya.”

“Thanks.” She sighs. “Oh, Merle, there’s just so much to  _ do.” _

“Ain’t never not gonna be stuff to do. New batch of campers is due today, plenty of shit to do for that. Gonna have Mookie do most of it, be good for him, and he’s got a knack with the younger kids especially. Delegating, that’s the key.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

“Hell yeah.” He starts walking down the lawn. When she doesn’t follow immediately, he pauses and looks back at her. “C’mon. You think he wants to get right to a new job? Only just got fired from the last one, so to speak.” And with that he starts back up again towards the beach stairs. She catches up to him with a few quick strides.

Merle is uncharacteristically quiet as they go down to the beach. He slips out of his fantasy crocs, digging his toes into the sand with a little sigh. He moves slowly through the yoga poses she remembers from the years after Legato, seemingly ignoring her as she pulls off her shoes and socks, standing on one foot then the other. The sand above the tide line is warm, not yet too hot for bare feet. It’s a bit too soft to get a good grip, though, so she takes a few steps down to where the sand is damp but firm with just a bit of give.

She’s used bits and pieces of his routines for years, but hasn’t gone through it  _ with _ him since — and then as she watches, she notices he’s changed it up a bit. Maybe someone who was less familiar couldn’t tell the difference, and maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, but there is a difference. And she  _ is _ surprised. She pauses to watch, then follows along, and is surprised again when the movements are easier on her shoulders and her knees.

The surprise shows in a little sound she doesn’t quite intend, and then Merle pauses to look at her. He’s smiling as he nods at her.

“Few new tricks, eh?” he says.

“You’ve really improved the routine,” she replies.

“Nice of you to say.” He moves smoothly into the next form, and she tries to follow along. “Showed your gal Carey some the other day. She’s a good ‘un, that one.”

“I’m glad she could be there,” Lucretia says, her voice dropping with the sincerity of feeling. Tears gather in the corners of her eyes.

“Ya did a good job recruiting folks, sister. Present company excluded.”

Lucretia’s laugh is rough with emotion.

“Oh, Merle.”

“Don't think I ever said it, but I'm damn glad you brought us in. That Carey, she's a real good friend for Mags. He woulda never met her if it wasn't for—”

She takes a sharp breath and fumbles her stance, nearly dropping to her knees, sand kicking up behind her heel. 

“He wouldn't have— none of this would have been necessary—”

Merle makes a little sound of dissent, then turns and helps Lucretia regain her balance. 

“Nobody can say what  _ woulda,  _ really,” he says. “Just what did. An’ that was a damn fine part of what did, Maggie getting a good friend who just happened to be a badass. Nice work.”

She chuckles. “That was...unexpected, although perhaps it shouldn’t have been.”

Merle leans forward, stretching out towards the ocean with a slow exhale. She follows his gaze: far out in the crashing waves, a squat figure rides a board over the spray.

“Lot of that,” says Merle, eyes trained on his son in the surf.

“I never heard how he learned,” she says. “Was it—”

“Yup, he stayed with us a stretch few years back. Mavis never really took to it, but Mookie, well….” Merle’s smile is both fond and proud. “Taako really helped the kid channel his energy with the ol’ surfboard. Comes out here most mornings, even in the winter.”

“Oh.” She’s stopped any pretense of following along, just standing still and watching as Mookie drops down to paddle his board further out again. She thinks of Angus, of Kenneth; she thinks of the fragments she’s gathered about the school, and all of Taako’s devoted students. (She thinks of the young man who’d rushed away from the mountain in Legato, vowing to change his life, though there would never be a chance of that.) “He really does have a knack for that, doesn’t he?”

“Ya ain’t much different, missy, you and him, in the good ways and the bad.”

She hums softly. 

“Probably ain't none of my business,” he says, and she murmurs  _ not that that's ever stopped you before  _ “but what all happened to the two of you in there?” 

Then the trembling starts again, all over her body, and before anything awkward happens, she sits down, despite the damp, despite the sand. She lands with a thump; maybe she was closer to falling down than she thought. A long ragged breath, and she doesn’t know where to begin.

She feels rather than sees Merle move to stand beside her; his hand rests on her shoulder, and he squeezes gently.

“Really gets my goat to hear about folks using Zone of Truth inappropriately,” he says, “not least on my friends.”

She laughs. “What do you know about appropriate uses of Zone of Truth?” she replies, but she leans into him for comfort.

“Know it ain’t for  _ torture,” _ he says in a tone of deep offense with another squeeze of her shoulder. She lets out another long breath.

“Do you think he did that to… To...Magnus?”

Merle hums. “Maybe. Maybe so.” He chuckles. “Nice deflection, though.”

“I didn’t mean to….”

“I know. Ya don’t have to tell me if it’s too much. But I know you’re not gonna be able to tell Maggie….”

She watches Mookie glide across a wave, then abruptly tumble off into the water. The enormity of what she can’t tell Magnus— ever— hits her again full force. There will be neither the satisfaction of shared revenge nor the satisfaction of confession. She was accustomed to keeping secrets, but this…. 

“We gave up— we told him who Angus was to us— and he was ready and willing to use that.”

“Shit, that sucks. I can see where that’d get you shook up. Good thing we came along when we did, eh?”

“The very definition of  _ in the nick of time,  _ I think,” she says with a soft chuckle. Then she thinks of the night they spent in Kalen’s dungeon— separated, but in some ways more together than they’d been in years.

“When you three were…you know — did he ever use that band of thought?”

Merle looks off in thought for a second, then laughs. “Come to think of it, he and Maggie used it when we were all suspicious of you, and Magnus was in that wooden fella. Used it right under your nose, I’m pretty sure.”

“Huh.” They’ve never talked about that, really; what he was thinking when he was a mannikin, allowing her to think he was dead. “It was the only thing Kalen’s men didn’t take. I suppose it didn’t look especially magical.”

“So you all were….”

“Except when he was there, with that wand of magic suppression, yes. That’s how we communicated.”

Merle nods slowly. “In each other’s heads, all that time. Ya doin’ okay with that?”

“Complicated question,” she says. She digs into the sand with one finger, tracing an abstract pattern. “Funny thing is, now I miss it. I thought I missed him before. I thought I was used to missing him around, all this time, you know?”

Merle stays silent. Waves crash onto the sand.

“But now? It was awful, being in there. Being powerless, being— I thought we were both going to die, Merle. I thought  _ Angus _ was going to die. But….” She gives a soft mirthless laugh. “We were working together.”

“Bein’ in danger’ll do that. He’s had his beef with ya, but he’d never…. You know, he’d say it like only he gets to mess with ya, but that’s mostly bluster, I’m pretty sure.”

“I had a nightmare, while we were in there.”

“‘Bout what was happening?”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no, old nightmare, nothing unusual.” He harrumphs, and when she looks at him out of the corner of her eye, he’s frowning. “And Taako was…. He brought me out of it, helped me calm down enough to sleep. Like he used to….”

Her heart feels hollow and tired. Too tired even to cry.

“You all were real close for a long time,” Merle says. “I’ve been hoping he was gonna let it go at some point.”

“No reason why he should,” she says.

“‘Reason’ is overrated, when it comes to people, especially friends. Ya missed him, and now you’re missing him again. No shame in it.”

She closes her eyes, and her senses are filled with the sounds and smells of the shore. She sees Taako being walked through the dungeon, hands tied, gagged, feels again that rollercoaster of hope and despair.

“Kalen…” she starts, remembering the look on his face.

Merle cuts her off. “Ah, fuck that guy. Tried to split ya, didn’t he.”

She nods, eyes still closed, feeling the sun and the salt wind on her face.

“Fella like that wouldn’t know friendship if it kicked him in the teeth.” He laughs at his own words. “Guess it did, huh?”

A laugh escapes her unexpectedly. He’s dead. He’s dead and gone and  _ they did that, together _ and if that’s not enough, what will be?

When she opens her eyes, Mookie’s tumbling through the surf again, this time rolling up on the beach, his board sliding up onto the sand ahead of his body. He stands and grabs the board before the waves can pull it back out again. He looks at the ocean as if calculating, then up towards the house, then back at the ocean. And finally he shakes himself like a dog, water from his hair and beard spraying all the way up to where Lucretia and Merle are sitting.

“Watch what you’re doing,” says Merle, not unkindly, and Mookie grins as he walks up towards them with his board. He’s got more of a measured pace now, Lucretia realizes, almost missing the boy who would have just barrelled into her only a year or two earlier.

He flops down beside them, sand instantly crusting the back of his head with sand. He looks up at Lucretia. “You bring gorpp?”

“I don’t have any on me, I’m afraid.” She glances up towards the house. “I can leave you some, though.”

“Aw, that’d be dope. Thanks, Aunt Lucretia.” He sighs melodramatically. “Ughhhhhh. I gotta go get ready for camp.”

“You  _ get _ to go get ready for camp,” says Merle. 

Mookie rolls his eyes. “Daaaaad.”

“Ah, I’m just joshing ya. I’ll come help out.” Merle reaches out his soulwood arm and helps Mookie up. He looks to Lucretia. “Can’t talk you into staying a few days, can I?”

She shakes her head.

“Well, you sit out here as long as you need to. Ocean air’s good for you. C’mon kid,” and he throws an arm around Mookie. “Let’s let your Auntie Lucinda get a minute to herself.”

“Dad.”

She looks at the two of them together; Merle winks, and she chuckles softly.

“Thank you,” she says.

“Ah, any time, kid. Just say the word.”

At first, she watches them walk up the beach together: Mookie talking loud and excited, his surfboard bobbing in time with his words, Merle nodding along. Then she looks back towards the sea, long slow waves a soft roar all around her, echoing off of the cliffs. She still remembers all the terms Taako came up with, that year, the ridiculous slang that just flowed off of his tongue. She can see herself on the last day there, swimming out with Magnus. Sitting with Taako on his board, how precarious it was, but also how safe. It’s been forever since it was easy like that.

She curls her knees to her chest. It all blends together: the three of them on the beach, the two of them at the Hanging Arcanum, with everyone else telling her no, the leap of joy in her chest seeing them again and the horror that followed at how changed they were. The memory of Magnus and Julia’s wedding, and reliving that memory for Taako. His hand on her knee; his face behind bars.

(Summers of coming here to this beach, seeing him with the others, seeing him surf, and not speaking, always making sure to stay out of his way, to give him his space. And she’d missed him and never said so even to herself.)

It’s almost too much, the ache in her chest so heavy she can’t cry. She wishes he were there, and not to tell him again that she’s sorry, but simply because she misses his presence. The familiar shame has been transmuted to grief. She sighs and the sound is swallowed by wind and wave, the crying of sea birds overhead.

The incoming tide is nearly at her toes when she stands, and she lets the foamy edge of the water lap at her shoes for a moment before she’s ready to leave the beach.

Merle’s standing at the top of the stairs when she comes up, a distant look in his eyes, the sun casting his shadow down the steps. There’s a long moment before he seems to notice her, and then he smiles, though his eyes are still serious.

“I’ll make up your room a few days early?” he says. She nods. “Always a place for ya if you need a break.” He pauses, squinting at her — down for once, since she’s still on the steps. “And you need a damn break, Madame Director. No spa here, but maybe we’ll go dig up some good mud out in the back woods?”

She laughs at that, as she supposes he intended.

“No need for  _ that _ , but I promise I’ll take a real break.”

“Good. Don’t want to see any paperwork with you this time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Name is a direct callback to @hops's Another Beach Year, obvs, as is Mookie's surfing, but this also owes something to the pair of fic I've written about Lucretia and Merle and the beach.
> 
> (Also recently I realized that she actually calls it pgorp and not gorpp, but too late now.)


End file.
